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Edward Chiera
Edward Chiera (August 5, 1885 – June 20, 1933) was an Italian- American archaeologist, Assyriologist, and scholar of religions and linguistics. Born in Rome, Italy, in 1885, Chiera trained as a theologian at the Crozer Theological Seminary (B.D. 1911, Th.M. 1912). He completed his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D. 1913). He was faculty of the University of Pennsylvania until 1927, at which time he joined the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chiera was Annual Professor of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) at Baghdad in 1924 – 1925. At that time he conducted archaeological excavations in ancient Nuzi, near Kirkuk, Iraq, at the invitation of Gertrude Bell and sponsored by the Iraq Museum. His discovery and deciphering of the Nuzi Tablets was an important archaeological result. He traveled to Istanbul in 1924 and copied some fifty pieces of inscribed clay tablets from the Nippur collection. In the years that followed, he copied ...
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Rome, Italy
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2,746,984 residents in , Rome is the list of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, with a population of 4,223,885 residents, is the most populous metropolitan cities of Italy, metropolitan city in Italy. Rome metropolitan area, Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber Valley. Vatican City (the smallest country in the world and headquarters of the worldwide Catholic Church under the governance of the Holy See) is an independent country inside the city boun ...
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National Museum Of Iraq
The Iraq Museum () is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was looted during and after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite international efforts, only some of the stolen artifacts have been returned. After being closed for many years while being refurbished, and rarely open for public viewing, the museum was officially reopened in February 2015. Foundation After World War I, archaeologists from Europe and the United States began several excavations throughout Iraq. In an effort to keep those findings from leaving Iraq, Gertrude Bell (a British traveller, intelligence agent, archaeologist, and author) began collecting the artifacts in a government building in Baghdad in 1922. In 1926, on the 14th of June, the Iraqi government moved the collection to a new building and established the Baghdad Antiquities M ...
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Ephraim Avigdor Speiser
Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (January 24, 1902 – June 15, 1965) was a Polish-born American Assyriologist and translator of the Torah. He discovered the ancient site of Tepe Gawra in 1927 and supervised its excavation between 1931 and 1938. Speiser was married to Sue Gimbel Dannenbaum, granddaughter of Charles Gimbel of the Gimbel Brothers. They had two children together, Jean and Joel. Early life Speiser was born in Skalat, Galicia (then in Austrian Poland, now Ukraine) on January 24, 1902. He went to school in Lemberg (later called Lwow, now Lviv), attending the Imperial Gymnasium of Lemberg and later graduating from the College of Lemberg in 1918. Two years later, at the age of 18, he emigrated to the United States and eventually became a US citizen in 1926. In the United States, Speiser received his M.A. in Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1923, studying under J.A. Montgomery and Max Margolis. He continued his studies under Max Margolis and earned his Ph.D ...
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Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyman John Harvard (clergyman), John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of Colonial history of the United States, colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. While never formally affiliated with any Religious denomination, denomination, Harvard trained Congregationalism in the United States, Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston B ...
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Lamassu
''Lama'', ''Lamma'', or ''Lamassu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian language, Sumerian: lammař; later in Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''lamassu''; sometimes called a ''lamassuse'') is an Mesopotamia, Assyrian protective deity. Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called ''Lamma'', it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion—specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name ''Lamassu''. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a goddess. A less frequently used name is ''shedu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: alad; Akkadian, ''šēdu''), which refers to the male counterpart of a ''lamassu''. ''Lamassu'' represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations. Goddess Lama The goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orans and presents them to the deities. The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lam(m)a in a Kassites, Kassite st ...
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Sargon II
Sargon II (, meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have become king after overthrowing Shalmaneser V (727–722), probably his brother. He is typically considered the founder of a new dynastic line, the Sargonid dynasty. Modelling his reign on the legends of the ancient rulers Sargon of Akkad, from whom Sargon II likely took his regnal name, and Gilgamesh, Sargon aspired to conquer the known world, initiate a golden age and a new world order, and be remembered and revered by future generations. Over the course of his seventeen-year reign, Sargon substantially expanded Assyrian territory and enacted important political and military reforms. An accomplished warrior-king and military strategist, Sargon personally led his troops into battle. By the end of his reign, all of his major enemies and r ...
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Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ancient Old Assyrian Empire, Assyrian city of Nineveh—once the List of largest cities throughout history, largest city in the world—on its east side. Due to its strategic and central location, the city has traditionally served as one of the hubs of international commerce and travel in the region. It is considered as one of the historically and culturally significant cities of the Arab world. The North Mesopotamian dialect of Arabic commonly known as North Mesopotamian Arabic, ''Moslawi'' is named after Mosul, and is widely spoken in the region. Together, with the Nineveh Plains, Mosul is a historical center of the Assyrian people, Assyrians. The surrounding region is ethnically and religiously diverse; a large majority of the city is A ...
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Khorsabad
Dur-Sharrukin (, "Fortress of Sargon"; , Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh. History Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified in order to attract a sufficient labour force. The land in the environs of the town was taken under cultivation, and olive groves were planted to increase Assyria's deficient oil-production. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC, when the court moved to Dur-Sharrukin, although it was not completely finished ...
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James Breasted
James Henry Breasted (; August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894 – the first American to obtain a doctorate in Egyptology – he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the university, where he continued to concentrate on Egypt. In 1905 Breasted was promoted to full professor, and held the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States. Breasted was a committed field researcher in Egypt and the Levant and had a productive interest in recording and interpreting ancient writings, especially from sources and structures that he feared may be lost forever. In 1919 he founded the Oriental Institute (later known as, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures) at the University of Chicago, a center for interdisciplinary study of ancient civilizations. That same year, he was ...
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Chicago Assyrian Dictionary
The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD) or The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is a nine-decade project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute (now known as the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures) to compile a dictionary of the Akkadian language and its dialects. Modeled on the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', work on the project was initiated in 1921 by James Henry Breasted, the founder of the Oriental Institute, who had previously worked on the Berlin dictionary of Ancient Egyptian. From 1973 to 1996, Erica Reiner was editor in charge, followed by Martha T. Roth, dean of humanities. Initially expected to take 10 years to complete, the first volume was not published until 1956, and the 26th and final volume was published in 2011. At a conference at the Oriental Institute on June 6, 2011, scholars assessed the significance of the dictionary. Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute, said it "is an indispensable r ...
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Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: ) which form their Grapheme, signs. Cuneiform is the History of writing#Inventions of writing, earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian language, Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC. The other languages with significant cuneiform Text corpus, corpora are Eblaite language, Eblaite, Elamit ...
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Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who was posthumously deified. His rule probably would have taken place sometime in the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, 2900–2350 BC, though he became a major figure in Sumerian legend during the Third Dynasty of Ur (). Tales of Gilgamesh's legendary exploits are narrated in five surviving Sumerian poems. The earliest of these is likely "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld", in which Gilgamesh comes to the aid of the goddess Inanna and drives away the creatures infesting her ''huluppu'' tree. She gives him two unknown objects, a ''mikku'' and a ''pikku'', which he loses. After Enkidu's death, his shade tells Gilgamesh about the bleak conditions in the Underworld. The poem '' Gilgamesh and Aga'' de ...
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